Tracking of supplied wafers is often necessary at integrated circuit fabrication facilities due to numerous considerations including, but not limited to, the need to accurately allocate supplied wafers when diverse fabrication lines are operated at the integrated circuit fabrication facilities that employ different supplied wafers; the need to verify that supplied wafers match requested wafers that have passed quality approval; and the need to handle and transfer supplied wafers from shipping containers, such as front opening shipping boxes (FOSBs), to front opening unified pods (FOUPs) that allow the supplied wafers to be accessed during automated integrated circuit fabrication.
Existing waferstart processes and systems are in place for registering receipt of requested wafers and for enabling quality approval of the requested wafers. For example, a Certificate of Assurance (CofA) is provided by a wafer supplier, such as a vendor or internal supplier at other locations within the integrated circuit fabrication facility. The CofA includes order information from requested wafers and various measurements of the requested wafers that are provided by the wafer supplier, and the information from the CofA is analyzed in a computer for quality approval. Once the order information is passed through quality approval, the shipment of requested wafers is registered in the computer and available for use in integrated circuit fabrication.
To commence integrated circuit fabrication, a production lotstart submits a query of available wafers to the computer, and FOSBs including supplied wafers that have passed quality approval are provided to the production lotstart for use in integrated circuit fabrication. The FOSBs that contain supplied wafers from the wafer supplier are then unwrapped, followed by placing the supplied wafers and an empty FOUP on a sorter. A batch of individual supplied wafers is then registered in the computer and placed into the empty FOUP in anticipation of fabricating integrated circuits using the supplied wafers. Wafer identifications for individual supplied wafers are manually read on the sorter and entered into the computer to create the batch. Significant user error is attendant in the process of creating the batches and transferring individual supplied wafers into the FOUP using the sorter. Further, the process of creating the batches and entering the wafer identifications for individual supplied wafers is time-consuming and is detrimental to process efficiency.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide waferstart processes and systems that minimize time required to register supplied wafers in a computer while verifying that the supplied wafers are approved for quality and while minimizing opportunities for user error. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.